SYMHC Classics: Samuel Pepys

Summary

Podcast Summary: Stuff You Missed in History Class – “Samuel Pepys”

Podcast: Stuff You Missed in History Class
Hosts: Holly Fry & Tracy V. Wilson
Original Air Date: May 29, 2019 (rebroadcast Feb. 7, 2026)
Episode Theme: An in-depth exploration of the life, diaries, and times of Samuel Pepys—one of the most famous diarists and a key eyewitness to 17th-century London’s extraordinary events.

---

Overview

This episode delves into Samuel Pepys’ life, focusing on both his historical importance and the quirky, personal details preserved in his legendary diary. Holly and Tracy unravel the man behind the writing—his relationships, career, scandals, and the immense value of his firsthand account of tumultuous events such as the Great Plague and the Great Fire of London.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Who Was Samuel Pepys?

• Background: Born February 23, 1633, in London, to a tailor and a butcher's daughter—humble origins (05:39).
• Education: Attended Huntingdon Grammar School, St. Paul’s School, and Cambridge. He forged connections, such as a lifelong friendship with John Dryden (05:59).
• Vital Patron: His cousin, Edward Montague (later Earl of Sandwich), plays a crucial role in Pepys’ ascent (06:17).

2. Personal Life & Marriage

• Romantic Beginnings: Marries Elizabeth Samichel for love, not money, when she was 14 and he was 22 (06:37-06:58).
• Hardships: Both faced serious health issues early in marriage; Samuel with bladder stones, Elizabeth with unspecified gynecological problems. Their relationship was tumultuous—marked by volatility, deep affection, jealousy, and frequent quarrels (07:26-08:30).

Notable Quote:

"In spite of their feelings for one another… their marriage got off to a really rocky start. Elizabeth had some sort of recurring persistent gynecological problem and Samuel was in a lot of pain due to stones in his bladder… their physical relationship was difficult and probably painful for both of them."
— Holly Fry (07:26)

3. Health Struggles and Lithotomy

• Surgery Detail: Underwent a dangerous bladder stone operation in 1658, which he survived—almost miraculously—given the lack of anesthesia and sterile tools (09:05).
• Aftereffects: Speculation about his inability to have children being linked to the surgery (09:43).

Notable Quote:

"A surgeon named Thomas Hollier removed a stone that measured about 2 inches in diameter, which Samuel kept in a specially made case to show to people afterward."
— Tracy V. Wilson (09:05)

4. Rise as a Naval Administrator

• Historic Context: Pepys witnesses the restoration of Charles II (10:27-12:32), thanks to the interwoven fates of political power and family ties.
• Career Launch: Appointed Clerk of the Acts at the Navy Board; earns a salary, a house, and a lifelong career despite zero naval knowledge at first (16:50-17:28).
• Learning & Reform: Invests in education (hiring a math tutor), immersing himself in operations; becomes known for rooting out inefficiency and corruption (18:08).

Notable Quote:

"He got to work trying to close that gap as much as he could… Soon he stopped following the lead of the more senior board members and started trying to make things more efficient and orderly, which really drew the ire of some of his colleagues."
— Holly Fry (18:08)

5. Catastrophes of the 1660s: Plague and Fire

• Eyewitness Accounts: Pepys documents the Great Plague of London (1665) and the Great Fire (1666), offering granular details and candid personal emotions (19:13-20:44).
• Emotional Toll: Profound impact on Pepys’ psyche—recurring nightmares and fears after the Fire.

Notable Quotes:

"On August 31, he wrote, 'In the city died this week 7,496 and all of them 6,102 of the plague.'"
— Tracy V. Wilson (19:42)

"I did within these six days see smoke still remaining of the late fire in the city… I cannot sleep at night without great terrors of fire."
— Holly Fry [quoting Pepys] (20:44)

6. Scandals, Affairs, and Pepys’ Flawed Character

• Infidelity: Regularly unfaithful to Elizabeth—affairs with household staff, friends’ wives, and more are chronicled in his own diaries. Sometimes unwanted advances; sometimes mutual (22:55-24:59).
• Consequence: Elizabeth discovers one affair; drama and tension ensue, but Pepys still seeks further dalliances.

Memorable Diary Excerpt:

"I did labor to take by the hand and the body, but she would not… she took pins out to prick me… I did forbear, and was glad I did spy her design."
— Samuel Pepys, as quoted by Holly Fry (24:00)

7. Declining Eyesight & the Last Diary Entry

• End of the Journal: Fears blindness, ends diary on May 31, 1669, resigning himself to “see myself go into my grave” (25:30).
• Elizabeth’s Death: She dies of a fever later that year, at age 29; Pepys never remarries but has a long-term companion afterward (26:32-26:57).

Notable Quote:

"…almost as much as to see myself go into my grave, for which and all the discomforts that will accompany my being blind, the good God prepare me."
— Samuel Pepys (25:30)

8. Later Career and Legacy

• Political & Professional Ups/Downs: Accusations of secret Catholicism (“crypto-papist”); imprisonment and release; returns to Admiralty; helps publish Newton’s Principia Mathematica (27:47-31:21), but uses up Royal Society’s budget on an illustrated fish guide (31:21).
• Impact: Major reforms and strengthening of the Royal Navy, twice in his career.
• Retirement: After the Glorious Revolution (1688), is purged from office and spends his later years focusing on reading, collecting, and curating a massive personal library (32:24-33:12).

Notable Quote:

"He left his 3,000 volume library to Magdalene College at the University of Cambridge, with the stipulation that they be kept separate from the rest of the college's collection. Today those are housed as Pepys Library."
— Tracy V. Wilson (32:48)

9. The Diary’s Afterlife

• Rediscovery: Diary written in Thomas Shelton’s shorthand; mistaken as “code” until the 19th century (34:02-34:35).
• Editions: Early versions were severely censored; complete unexpurgated editions only emerged 1970–1983 (35:05-36:02).
• Rich Detail: The diaries offer much more than just records of great events—they reveal vivid, everyday life, Pepys’ humor, foibles, and even mundane irritations.

Memorable Quotes from Pepys’ Diary:

"…we saw Midsummer Night's Dream, which I had never seen before, nor shall ever again, for it is the most insipid, ridiculous play that I ever saw in my life."
— Samuel Pepys (37:19)

"A dog that the king loved, which [defecated] the boat, which made us laugh, which made me think that a king and all that belong to him are but just as others are."
— Samuel Pepys (36:58)

10. Where to Read More

• Online Access: Most of Pepys’ diary is available to read online, with daily entries and community annotations at peepsdiary.com and older editions on Project Gutenberg and Internet Archive.
• Heads Up: The most explicit portions are still generally left out of public domain editions (38:21-38:44).

---

Timestamps for Important Segments

• Early Life & Marriage: 05:39 – 08:30
• Lithotomy & Health: 09:05 – 09:43
• Restoration & Naval Career Begin: 10:27 – 18:08
• Plague & Fire Accounts: 19:13 – 20:44
• Dutch Raid & Aftermath: 21:12 – 22:41
• Affairs and Scandal: 22:55 – 24:59
• Declining Health & Last Diary Entry: 25:30 – 26:32
• Later Career and Political Troubles: 27:47 – 32:24
• Library & Death, Diary Rediscovery: 33:12 – 34:47
• Publication History of the Diary: 35:05 – 36:02
• Famous Diary Moments & Pepys’ Character: 36:31 – 37:40
• Finding the Diary Online: 38:21 – 38:44

---

Memorable Moments & Notable Quotes

• "[Pepys] has been something of a recurring character on our show...we have either name dropped him or read bits of his diaries..."
  — Holly Fry (02:58)

• "We may think without being sorted, that when we purchase six huge and distressingly expensive volumes, we are entitled to be treated rather more like scholars and rather less like children."
  — Robert Louis Stevenson on censored editions, as quoted by Tracy V. Wilson (35:40)

• "Samuel Pepys...thought everything around him was interesting and worth noticing."
  — Holly Fry (37:40)

---

Conclusion

Holly and Tracy’s discussion of Samuel Pepys is both comprehensive and peppered with the irreverence and curiosity that defines his diary. They capture Pepys’ complex personality—his ambition, flaws, humor, and remarkable candor—while also illustrating his unique vantage point amid the seismic events of 17th-century London. This episode is a lively, in-depth recommendation for anyone curious about the daily reality (and gossip!) of a time often viewed only through the filter of momentous history.

Transcript

[Holly Fry]

This is an I Heart podcast. Guaranteed human.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

In the middle of the night, Saskia.

[Holly Fry]

Awoke in a haze.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Her husband Mike was on his laptop. What was on his screen would change Saskia's life forever.

[Holly Fry]

I said, I need you to tell.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Me exactly what you're doing.

[Holly Fry]

And immediately the mask came off. You're supposed to be safe. That's your home. That's your husband. Listen to Betrayal Season 5 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Hans Charles]

Black History lives in our stories, our culture and the conversations we still having today this Black History Month. The podcast I didn't know, maybe you didn't either digs into the moments, perspectives and experiences that don't always make the textbook. Let me tell you about Garrett Morgan Bruh had to pretend he didn't even exist just to sell his own invention. Listen to I didn't know. Maybe you didn't either. From the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast or simply wherever you get your podcast. 1969 Malcolm and Martin are gone, America is in crisis and at Morehouse College, the students make their move. These students, including a young Samuel L. Jackson, locked up. The members of the Board of trustees, including Martin Luther King Sr. It's the true story of protest and rebellion in black American history that you'll never forget. I'm Hans Charles. I'm Menelik Lumumba. Listen to the A Building on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Holly Fry]

WSECU isn't just one of Washington's best credit unions. We're a Forbes Best in State five years running.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Why?

[Holly Fry]

Because we put you first. Lower fees, early paydays, financial guidance and service second to non. As a member owned cooperative, we love Washington as much as you do. From the Olympic Mountains to the rolling Palouse. Join us and discover how much we care about your financial well being. Because what we really do best is invest in you. Visit wsecu.org today to learn more. Washington let's credit union.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Happy Saturday. With this week's episode on John Evelyn's Fumafugiam. We thought we'd bring out our past episode on his contemporary and fellow diarist, Samuel Pepys.

[Holly Fry]

Samuel Pepys also fond of irritating women in public spaces and sometimes they would stick him with pins. So know that this episode originally came out on May 29, 2019, so enjoy.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Welcome to Stuff youf Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartradio.

[Holly Fry]

Hello and welcome to the podcast.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Fry.

[Holly Fry]

Samuel Pepys has been something of a recurring character on our show. We have either name dropped him or read bits of his diaries in our episodes on Anne Lister and the Pirate Henry Every and the Straw Hat Riots and Britain's theft of tea from China and the Bawdy house riots of 1668 and the belief that the royal touch could cure your scrofula. I have to imagine previous hosts have at some point still said something about Samuel Pepys too, but that's a lot harder for us to track at this point.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

I think all historians eventually talk about Samuel Pepys.

[Holly Fry]

It all eventually comes back to Peeps. Something that came up in one of these discussions between Holly and me, which is was that we had both read selections from Peeps diary in school, and yet we did not know until working on this podcast how funny it could be. It was like our experience was the opposite of the Princess Bride, where somebody had gone through the diary and only left in the boring parts. When I started working on this episode, I was also surprised to learn that the funny parts were not the only thing left out of my Samuel Pepys experience in school. Our episode on Ann Lister's diaries talked about how much of them were dedicated to detailing her sexual relationships. And the same thing is true for Samuel Pepys, and parts of his diary are similarly explicit. Like one passage that I was reading as I was researching this caused me to go whoa. Out loud at my desk. We aren't gonna be reading that passage. But just like, fair warning.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

See, I knew there was dirty stuff in the diaries, and I wonder if and I don't remember exactly what copy I read at various points in my education. I wonder if maybe in my case some of the funny stuff was there, but I didn't get the comedy.

[Holly Fry]

I think probably every Samuel Pepys thing that I had read had been in an anthology. Like, not a standalone copy of anything. And I went back and looked as I was working on this to be Am I, like, fudging my own memory here? And no, like my Norton Anthology of English Literature from back in my college days, like, only has a couple of passages. They're only about the fire. They're not funny or racy in any way. And I think that, like, was the case. Like, anything that I was reading was was excerpted in another work and not like a standalone, more lengthy thing. Regardless, though, we're coming up on the 350th anniversary of Peep's last diary entry, which was written on May30 of 1669. So it seemed like a good time to take a closer look, not just at the diary, but also at who Pepys was beyond his famous chronicle of life in 17th century London.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Samuel Pepys was born in London on February 23, 1633. His father was a tailor and his mother was a butcher's daughter. So they were not a particularly prominent or affluent family. Samuel had 10 siblings, but only two of them lived to adulthood and of those three, Samuel was the oldest.

[Holly Fry]

With the help of other family, Samuel was able to go to school. He went to Huntingdon Grammar School and then moved on to St. Paul's School. From there he went to Cambridge, where he started a lifelong friendship with John Dryden, who would go on to be England's first poet laureate. Pepys graduated with a BA in 1653.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

The Pepys family had one connection that served Samuel extremely well. That was Edward Montague, who was Samuel's father's cousin and would eventually become the first Earl of Sandwich. He took an interest in Samuel and hired him as a secretary. Had that not happened, Samuel probably would have pursued a career in law.

[Holly Fry]

In 1655, Samuel married Elizabeth Samichel. She was the daughter of a French Huguenot who had come to England as a refugee. They had a religious ceremony on October 10, 1655, when Elizabeth was 14 and Samuel was 22. And then they had a civil ceremony on December 1, by which point she had turned 15.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

This was definitely a match made for love and not for money. The Sam Michelles had been well off and prominent, but they had fallen on hard times, in part because of her father's religious conversion. Samuel wound up supporting several of them financially, but at the start of his marriage to Elizabeth, he wasn't in a position to do that at all. He couldn't even afford lodgings for the two of them, so they had to live in his room in Montague's quarters at Whitehall Palace.

[Holly Fry]

In spite of their feelings for one another, which, I mean, they do seem to have genuinely been very fond of each other and their ages today are highly questionable. But at the time like that was, those are pretty normal ages to get married, their marriage got off to a really rocky start. Elizabeth had some sort of recurring persistent gynecological problem and Samuel was in a lot of pain due to stones in his bladder and urinary tract. So from the very beginning their physical relationship was difficult and probably painful for both of them. Elizabeth's feelings on this aren't really recorded anywhere, but it was hugely frustrating for Samuel.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Also, while Samuel was besotted with his wife. He was deeply jealous and possessive. She was lovely, lively and charming and tended to attract the attention of other men. As far as we know, Elizabeth was always faithful to Samuel, but she also clearly enjoyed flattery and attention. If Samuel thought a man was paying too much attention to her or that she was being too flirtatious, he would get angry about it. And a aside from that, he could be very critical of her.

[Holly Fry]

All of this together made their relationship really tense. Elizabeth went back home to her family for a few months in 1657, returning to Samuel at Whitehall in December. They finally moved into a place of their own the following August. Although their relationship continued to have just serious ups and downs. They both had volatile tempers, peeps had a lot of affairs, and they were known to fight and even threaten each other when things got really heated. At least in Pepys diary, though, which is virtually the only source of information that we have about Elizabeth. They also seemed really genuinely fond of each other when things were good.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

On March 26, 1658, Pepys had a lithotomy, which is a surgical procedure to remove a bladder stone. A surgeon named Thomas Hollier removed a stone that measured about 2 inches in diameter, which Samuel kept in a specially made case to show to people afterward. He recovered with no complications, which is incredible considering that there was no anesthesia and the instruments weren't in any way sterile. These surgeries weren't uncommon at the time, but deaths and complications were pretty commonplace. Pepys developed other stones later on, but for a time after this procedure he was almost symptom free.

[Holly Fry]

I said in this outline that he recovered with no complications. He and Elizabeth never had any children. And one of the things that people cite as maybe a reason for that is that this procedure might have been successful at removing the stone, but also also might have inadvertently made him unable to have children. That's all very speculative though, like we don't know exactly why they didn't have any children. Pepys wrote his first diary entry on January 1, 1660, and he referred to this ailment in the very first sentence, quote, blessed be God. At the end of the last year I was in very good health, without any sense of my old pain, but upon taking of cold. We'll talk more about the diary later, especially through this next section of the episode. But this is when he started keeping it.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

1660 was a big year for Samuel Pepys. He finished his master's degree and he was part of the fleet that brought King Charles II back to England. Super quick recap. Charles II's father, Charles I, was king during the English Civil wars, which were a series of conflicts primarily between royalists and parliamentarians. Charles I was executed in 1649, and Charles II was forced into exile in 1651. Oliver Cromwell, who had been a general on the parliamentarian side, became Lord Protector of England, Scotland and Ireland. Not long after Cromwell's death in 1658, Royalists started working out a deal to restore Charles II to the throne.

[Holly Fry]

Obviously, it was a lot more complicated than those quick highlights. And also complicated were the loyalties of Pepys patron, Edward Montague. Montague had fought on the parliamentarian side, and he had been closely connected to both Oliver Cromwell and his son Richard, who tried unsuccessfully to follow in his late father's footsteps. Montague had actually advocated for Oliver Cromwell to be crowned as king.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

But by the spring of 1659, Royalists and parliamentarians alike were wondering if Montague's allegiance was shifting. Charles II's representatives made overtures to him while Parliament stripped him of his Admiralty Commission. And for good reason. He was negotiating in secret for the return of the king. But after a very politically chaotic end of 1659 and beginning of 1660, Montague was reappointed to the Admiralty Commission and made General of the Sea, along with George Monck, who was actively working to restore Charles II to the throne.

[Holly Fry]

Once a deal was negotiated for Charles's return, Montague secured the fleet that traveled to the Netherlands to bring him back to England. And thanks to Montague's influence, Samuel Pepys was on board with that fleet. The fleet landed back at Dover with the king on May 25, 1660, and almost immediately, Charles II made Montague an earl.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

That was the beginning of a tremendously eventful decade for Pepys personally and for Britain in general. And we're going to talk more about all of that after a sponsor break.

[Hans Charles]

Welcome to the A building. I'm Hans Charles. I'm in Lumumba. It's 1969. Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr have both been assassinated. And black America was at a breaking point. Rioting and protest broke out on an unprecedented scale in Atlanta, Georgia. At Martin's alma mater, Morehouse College, the students had their own protest. It featured two prominent figures in black history, Martin Luther King Sr. And a young student, Samuel L. Jackson. To be in what we really thought was a revolution. I mean, people were dying. 1968, the murder of Dr. King, which traumatized everyone. The FBI had a role in the.

[Holly Fry]

Murder of a Black Panther leader in Chicago.

[Hans Charles]

This story is about protest. It echoes in today's world far more than it should, and it will blow your mind. Listen to the a building on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

In the middle of the night, Saskia.

[Holly Fry]

Awoke in a haze. Her husband Mike was on his laptop.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

What was on his screen would change Saskia's life forever.

[Holly Fry]

I said, I need you to tell me exactly what you're doing. And immediately the mask came off. You're supposed to be safe.

[Hans Charles]

That's your home.

[Holly Fry]

That's your husband. To keep this secret for so many years. He's like a seasoned pro. This is a story about the end.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Of a marriage, but it's also the story of one woman who was done living in the dark.

[Holly Fry]

You're a dangerous person who preys on vulnerable and trusting people. You're a predator. Michael Levengood. Listen to Betrayal Season 5 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Hans Charles]

This show contains information subject to but not limited to personal takes, rumors not so accurate stats, and plenty more. What's up, man? This your boy, Nav Green from the Broken Play podcast. Look, it's the end of the season. The playoffs are here. But guess what? It ain't the end of your season. You can always tune in with Broken Play podcast with Nav Green on the Black Effect podcast network. Work another team who ain't going to the playoff? The Chiefs. What's a wrap? It's time to rebuild.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Who?

[Hans Charles]

Your MVP right now. Then Drake May up there. Josh Allen up there still. Oh, my boy. Matthew Stafford. Where did Nicks at? He ain't too far behind.

[Holly Fry]

He did all this talking.

[Hans Charles]

What Matthew Stafford is doing statistically, bro, is crazy. Bro, you know I ain't no Josh Allen fan, but Matthew Stafford got better weapon. Caleb Williams. Hey, he should be in that conversation.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

In what conversation?

[Hans Charles]

He should be in it. Listen to Broken Play with Nav Green from the Black and White Effect podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast. Segregation in the day, Integration at night.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

When segregation was the law, one mysterious.

[Holly Fry]

Black club owner had his own rules. We didn't worry about what went on outside. It was like stepping in another world. Inside Charlie's place, black and white people danced together.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

But not everyone was happy about it. You saw the kkk?

[Holly Fry]

Yeah. They was dressed up in their uniform.

[Hans Charles]

The KKK set out to raid Charlie, take him away from here. Charlie was an example of power.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

They had to crush him. From Atlas Obscura Rococo Punch and visit Myrtle beach comes Charlie's Place, a story that was nearly lost to time. Until now. Listen to Charlie's place on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Holly Fry]

After Edward Montagu became the Earl of Sandwich, he told Samuel Pepys, quote, we must have a little patience and we will rise together. In the meantime, I will do you all the good jobs I can. This worked out really well for Pepys through the Earl's influence. In the summer of 1660, he was named Clerk of the Axe at the Navy Board. That's the administrative board responsible for running the Royal Navy and keeping it maintained and supplied.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

This position came along with a salary and a house, and it also meant that Pepys became a Justice of the Peace in the counties where the dockyards were located. This was the beginning of a lifelong career as a naval administrator.

[Holly Fry]

Pepys was a very hard worker, but he didn't actually know anything about the navy, like, at all. Nearly his entire experience was going on that voyage to bring Charles II back to England. So at first, he mostly just deferred to the rest of the board, some of whom had decades of Navy experience.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

But over the next couple of years, Pepys realized that having a long career in the Navy didn't necessarily make a person an upstanding naval administrator, or any good at it. He started to see a lot of laziness and waste and corruption, and he became especially distrustful of the men whose commands had been passed down to them through their families, rather than rising through the ranks based on their merit.

[Holly Fry]

But none of these opinions erased the fact that these men had knowledge and experience that peeps just didn't. So he got to work trying to close that gap as much as he could. His own education had been really weak in math, so he got a tutor and started learning multiplication tables. He immersed himself in the terminology and procedures and measurements that were needed to build, maintain and supply ships. Soon he stopped, following the lead of the more senior board members, and started trying to make things more efficient and orderly, which really drew the ire of some of his colleagues.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Pepys was taking on additional roles as well. He became secretary of the committee that ran the English colony at Tangier, which had been part of Catherine of Braganza's dowry when she married Charles ii. He was elected as Fellow of the Royal Society in 1665. The second Anglo Dutch War started later that year, and many of the rest of the board were aging or at sea. So Pepys found himself overseeing a large part of the Navy's wartime administration, including setting up a centralized provisioning system.

[Holly Fry]

In the mid-1660s, Pepys witnessed two catastrophes in very quick succession. The Great Plague of London and the Great Fire of London. The plague struck London in 1665, although Pepys diary also includes news of the diseases spread elsewhere in the years before that. On April 30, 1665, he wrote, quote, great fears of the sickness here in the city, it being said that two or three houses are already shut up, God preserve us all.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

His entries through 1665 and into 1666 detail fear of the plague and death tolls, some of which were enormous. On August 31, he wrote, quote, in the city died this week 7,496 and all of them 6,102 of the plague. But it is feared that the true number of the dead this week is near 10,000, partly from the poor that cannot be taken notice of through the greatness of the number, and partly from the Quakers and others that will not have any bell ring for them.

[Holly Fry]

For the first few months of 1666, he records numbers that decrease and then increase and then decrease again, then finally noting a day of thanksgiving for the plague's end on November 20th. Although he acknowledges that people were still.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Dying, the plague was in its last months when the fire began on September 2, 1666. Pepys chronicled the fire much like he did the plague, detailing people's fears along with what was burning and the progression of the fire itself and how the city tried to stop it.

[Holly Fry]

The fire affected peeps for months after it was over. The following February, he wrote, quote, the weather for three or four days being come to be exceedingly cold again as any time this year. I did within these six days see smoke still remaining of the late fire in the city. And it is strange to think how to this day I cannot sleep at night without great terrors of fire. And this very night I could not sleep till almost two in the morning through thoughts of fire.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

The Second Anglo Dutch War was going on through all of this, and peace negotiations started in August of 1666 and lasted into the following year. As the negotiations progressed, the British government decided to recall the fleet and scale down the navy while still trying to protect England from a Dutch attack. On March 23, Pepys wrote, quote, at the office where Sir W. Pencombe being returned from Chatham from considering the means of fortifying the River Medway by a chain at the stakes, and ships laid there with guns to keep the enemy from coming up to burn our ships, all our care being now to fortify ourselves against their invading us.

[Holly Fry]

So basically they didn't have enough money to keep maintaining the navy, like at the strength that it had been, while they were more actively at war. But the peace treaty had not been signed yet, so they needed to still have some kind of defense. And they were attempting to do this with a chain stretched across the mouth of the river. But a Dutch force did indeed attack the River Medway. That happened on June 9, 1667. They broke through that chain, destroyed some of the ships and captured others, including capturing the fleet's flagship, the Royal Charles. This was disastrous for the Navy. It was terrifying for the British people, since it put the Dutch in striking distance of London. Of course, then people questioned the judgment of the King over the whole thing. But the war did end with the Treaty of Bretta a month later.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Pepys, being the administrator who had arranged so much of the withdrawal, was investigated repeatedly. In the end, though, the officers who made the decisions took more of the blame than the Navy board, who had figured out just how to carry out those decisions.

[Holly Fry]

Soon, though, Pepys had other problems to worry about. On October 25, 1668, his wife caught him with one of their maids, Deborah Willett. Deb was 18 and she had been hired primarily as Elizabeth's companion. And Elizabeth was, of course, outraged they were not caught talking. Pepys was explicit in his diary about exactly what was going on. On October 31, he wrote, quote, so ends this month with some quiet to my mind, though not perfect after the greatest falling out with my poor wife and through my folly with the girl that I ever had. And I have reason to be sorry and ashamed of it, and more to be troubled for the poor girl's sake, whom I fear I shall by this means prove the ruin of, though I shall think myself concerned both to love and be a friend to her.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

In November, Elizabeth forced Samuel to dismiss Deb from their staff and agree to never see her again. But he did not keep that promise. He figured out where Deb had gone and went to visit and give her some money. It is not clear whether he continued their affair after she was out of the household, though.

[Holly Fry]

And also this was not the only affair that Peeps detailed in his diary. He wrote about dalliances with his friends, wives and his wife's friends and maids in their household, and on and on and on. And his attentions in these episodes were not always welcome. On August 18th of 1667, he wrote about going to church, where he, quote, stood by A pretty modest maid whom I did labor to take by the hand and the body, but she would not but got further and further from me, and at last I could perceive her to take pins out of her pocket to prick me if I should touch her again, which seeing I did forbear, and was glad I did spy her design. And then I fell to gaze upon another pretty maid in a cue close to me, and she on me. And I did go about to take her by the hand, which she suffered a little, and then withdrew. So the sermon ended, and the church broke up, and my amours ended too, and so took coach and home, and there took up my wife, and to Islington with her.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Oh, peeps. As he was writing about the fallout of his wife's discovery of his affair, Pepys was also writing about problems with his eyes. His diary entries record pain, sensitivity to light, and trouble seeing. He found that drinking made it worse, but he didn't want to give up drink. He loved going to the theater, but the light bothered him there, and he was forced to stop going. He tried all kinds of compresses and potions and pills to no effect, and he was granted several months of leave to try to recover.

[Holly Fry]

On May 31, 1669, he wrote his last diary entry, saying in part, quote, and thus ends all that I doubt I shall ever be able to do with my own eyes in the keeping of my journal, I being not able to do it any longer, having done now so long as to undo my eyes almost every time that I take pen in my hand. And therefore, whenever comes of it, I must forbear, and therefore resolve from this time forward to have it kept by my people in longhand, and must therefore be contented to set down no more than is fit for them and all the world to know. Or if there be anything, which cannot be much, how my amours to Deb are past, and my eyes hindering me in almost all other pleasures, I must endeavor to keep a margin in my book open, to add here and there a note in shorthand with my own hand. And so I betake myself to that course which is almost as much as to see myself go into my grave, for which and all the discomforts that will accompany my being blind, the good God prepare me.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Not long after, Samuel and Elizabeth went to the Low Countries in France, where she contracted some sort of fever. She died on November 10, 1669, at the age of 29. Samuel never remarried, but he did start an ongoing relationship with a woman named Mary Skinner. Not long after she eventually moved into his home and seems to have acted as his wife in everything but name.

[Holly Fry]

But in spite of this real certainty in the last diary entry that he was going blind, Pepys did not lose his sight as he feared that he would. And his career continued on for almost two decades after his wife's death. We'll have more on that after another quick sponsor break. As Samuel Pepys was struggling with his eyesight and traveling with his wife, he was also up for election to the House of Commons. And that was an election that he lost. He also started facing rumors that he was a crypto papist or a secret Catholic. Catholics were highly suspect in England at this point and Pepys had Catholic friends, some Catholic family members. There were some Catholic books in his library. All of this raised a lot of eyebrows.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

The third Anglo Dutch war started in March of 1672 and Pepys old benefactor, the Earl of Sandwich, was killed in action. The two men hadn't been close for a while. The Earl had been caught up in a scandal about the distribution of wartime prizes and Peeps had made enough of a name for himself that he didn't really need the Earl's patronage anymore. Even so, Pepys was a banner bearer at the funeral.

[Holly Fry]

In 1673, Parliament passed a Test act which banned Catholics and non conforming Protestants from holding public office. King Charles ii, brother the Duke of York, refused to take the required oaths that were mandatory for Catholics, which he was. So he was forced to resign as Lord High Admiral. Afterward, the King established an Admiralty Commission and Pepys became its Secretary. This was a promotion. It came with more income, more prestige and a lot more influence.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

On November 4th, 1673, Pepys was elected to the House of Commons. But once again, rumors surfaced that he was secretly Catholic, which led to another investigation. In the end, he kept his seat, although his work as an MP mostly stuck to matters of the Navy. And he kept picking up new roles outside the government at his job with the Admiralty, including becoming a Governor of Christ's Hospital, the Master of the Clothworkers Company and the Master of Trinity House.

[Holly Fry]

He also worked to reform and revitalize the navy, especially when it came to setting standards and establishing regulations for how things should be done. He successfully lobbied for funding to build new ships, convincing the House of commons to allocate £600,000 for it. In 1677, largely due to Pepys influence and planning, the strength of the Royal Navy nearly doubled while he was with the Admiralty.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

He did all this in the face of ongoing accusations that he was a crypto Papist. His opponents even went so far as to accuse his clerk of murder. In May of 1679, Pepys and Sir Anthony Deane were accused of leaking British secrets to France and Pepys was again accused of secretly being Catholic. He resigned his position with the Admiralty and he and Dean were both sent to the Tower. As this was going on, it was widely believed that Catholics were planning to assassinate the King and put his brother, the Duke of York on the throne. This so called Popish plot did not exist, but people were certain that it did.

[Holly Fry]

Pepys started trying to put together his defense, but it turned out that the prosecution really did not have much of a case. One of the key witnesses against him was a butler that he had previously fired and the charges were eventually dropped. Pepys spent the next few years mostly out of the public eye, traveling, collecting books for his library and acting as a secretary to Lord Dartmouth during an expedition to evacuate the British colony of Tangier after Britain decided to abandon it.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Pepys returned to the Admiralty in 1684 in a position that was created for him. That same year he was elected President of the Royal Society. His biggest claim to fame in this role is that he arranged for the publication of Isaac Newton's Principia Mathematica with Pepys imprimatur featured very prominently on the frontispiece. This was however funded by Edmond Halley, not by Pepys or the Royal Society. This was because Pepys had already spent the Society's budget and some of his own money on the elaborately illustrated History of Fish by Francis Willoughby, which then had been a total commercial flop.

[Holly Fry]

Like we talked about in our Christmastime episode where we talked about Charles Dickens and A Christmas Carol and how he just really wanted all of these engravings and illustrations. All those things were very, very expensive and peeps had run through the whole entire budget. But if you look there's, I mean plenty of scans of the, the frontispiece of, of Newton's Principia Mathematica and it's Samuel Pepys name is one of the bigger things on that document. In 1685, King Charles II died and his brother, the Duke of York finally did become King, becoming James II and seventh. Pepys continued on with the Admiralty under the new monarch, resuming his plans to strengthen the Royal Navy while also just end criticizing the people that had been in charge while he was gone. But none of this preparation did the King a lot of good. In 1688, William III, Prince of Orange, overthrew James in the Glorious Revolution. William became co Regent with his wife Mary, who was also James's daughter.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

The new administration purged Charles's supporters from office. Pepys resigned, was briefly detained under suspicion for treason and was ultimately released on medical grounds.

[Holly Fry]

Pepys spent most of his remaining life reading and studying and amassing a huge library which he just continually reorganized and curated. He also published a book, Memoirs of the Royal Navy, in 1690.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Samuel Pepys died on May 26, 1703 at the age of 70. He was buried next to his late wife Elizabeth at St Olive Church. He left his 3,000 volume library to Magdalene College at the University of Cambridge, with the stipulation that they be kept separate from the rest of the college's collection. Today those are housed as Pepys Library, which is open to the public and to scholars alike.

[Holly Fry]

Pepys diaries were part of this collection. During the nine years that he was keeping the diary, Pepys would note each day's activities, often ending with and so to bed. And then every few days he would edit them a little bit. He didn't seem to meaningfully change the content, but he kind of cleaned them up a little bit and copy them into a master journal. In addition to writing these in shorthand, he also used a hodgepodge of codes and other languages for the most salacious parts of it. The result was a set of six large volumes containing more than one and a quarter million words.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

For more than 100 years after Pepys death, no one knew what was in these diaries. It was only after John Evelyn's diaries were published in 1818 that scholars started trying to transcribe Pepys as well. Evelyn and Pepys live at the same time. They were also friends.

[Holly Fry]

Yeah, they are sort of the two companion diarists of this time in London. At the time, the people working with the diary thought that it was written in code and a Cambridge undergraduate named John Smith took on the task of decoding it. King Charles II had dictated an account of his 1651 escape from England to Samuel Pepys. Pepys had taken the dictation in shorthand and then later transcribed it into longhand, intending to publish it. Smith compared these two versions to work out how to transcribe the diaries.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

This work wasn't actually necessary though. Pepys was really writing in Thomas Shelton's system of shorthand and the handbook for it titled Tutor to Tachyography was there in Pepys library as well.

[Holly Fry]

Somebody apparently told John Smith like some years later, by the way, the manual to this was like it was right there. You didn't really. I don't know what his reaction was to this.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

I envision some hair pulling and some screaming, but maybe that would just be me.

[Holly Fry]

Either hair pulling and screaming or like. That was a fun challenge, though I don't mind that I did a bunch of totally unnecessary, tedious work. Portions of the transcribed diary were published starting in 1825, with longer editions coming out in the years that followed. A mostly complete edition edited by H.B. wheatley came out in 10 volumes across 1893 through 1899. In all these 19th century versions, profanity and the most explicit parts are all edited out. There are phrases, sentences, or sometimes whole days removed.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Robert Louis Stevenson wrote about the diaries in 1886. He expressed some chagrin at the idea that some parts of them were unfit for publication, saying, quote, we may think without being sorted, that when we purchase six huge and distressingly expensive volumes, we are entitled to be treated rather more like scholars and rather less like children.

[Holly Fry]

The first edition that didn't edit out the sex and profanity came out almost another century later. It was another series of volumes published between 1970 and 1983. So if you have only read the parts of the diary that are in the public domain and are probably also about either the plague or the fire, like we talked about at the top of the episode, you might have a very different impression of this diary than if you read other parts of an unexpurgated version.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Just as examples, on October 13, 1660, he went out to see a public hanging, something that he seems to have really enjoyed doing. This one was Major General Thomas Harrison, who had been convicted of regicide in the execution of King Charles the First. Pepys wrote, quote, I went out to Charing Cross to see Major General Harrison hanged, drawn and quartered, which was done there. He looking as cheerful as any man could in that condition.

[Holly Fry]

While on the boat with Charles II during his return to England, Pepys wrote about a dog defecating on the deck, saying, quote, I went with Mr. Mansell and one of the King's footmen with a dog that the king loved, which expletive deleted the boat which made us laugh, which made me think that a king and all that belong to him are but just as others are, are.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

He also didn't temper his opinions. On September 29, 1662, he wrote, quote, we saw Midsummer Night's Dream, which I had never seen before, nor shall ever again, for it is the most insipid, ridiculous play that I ever saw in my life. I saw, I confess, some good dancing and some handsome women, which was all my pleasure.

[Holly Fry]

So yes, Pepys diaries include a pretty straightforward eyewitness account of several major historical events in the 1660s. But peeps clearly also thought everything around him was interesting and worth noticing. So these diaries are also a fascinating account of daily life in London, including what people ate and what they saw at the theater and what music was popular. And then little details like discovering that the wig you bought was full of nits, or what to do when you had tummy trouble while you were staying at somebody else's house and the maid forgot to leave you a chamber pot. It's full of all kinds of random things that he saw and was just delighted or surprised by. And of course, all of those many, many aff.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

And it's all online for free except those most explicit parts. If you go to peepsdiary.com, it's been putting up an entry a day at a time since 2013, along with lots of annotations and letters and other information. And there are additions at project Gutenberg and archive.org as well, so you have plenty to dig through. If you want to learn more Peeps.

[Holly Fry]

You can just click on some random stuff. You might have a day where he was in the office and everything was sort of just just political administrative stuff. Or you might get one about a dog pooping on the deck of a boat. Thanks so much for joining us on this Saturday. If you'd like to send us a note, our email address is history podcastheartradio.com and you can subscribe to the show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. This is an iHeart podcast, Guaranteed Human.